Why LessWrong is MoreWrong

The elitist crowd at LessWrong is obsessed with super advanced technology they can't describe that will likely exterminate humanity.
So that sucks. At the same time, they completely refuse to allow criticism of technology that blatantly sucks right now.
Like, maybe find ways to make current technology suck less, to learn how to prevent things from sucking in general?

For me, that was the fastest way to get banned from LessWrong. It was simply taboo, as if I made an already unsolvable problem exponentially more difficult by talking about a completely different problem.
But that is the only way to make progress. You can't solve a big problem without first understanding a smaller problem that may be part of it.
Now LessWrong has become part of the problem instead of the solution.

For me, the world has always been evil beyond comprehension, but normal people have evolved not to see this. It's their greatest strength, the thing that often makes them invincible, and what really makes the world go round.
But with all the theoretical AI dangers that LessWrong keeps blathering about, it's time to finally face this evil. IF the AI danger is as real as they claim, and humanity is really at risk, then they should be willing to leave their respectable comfort zone, and allow controversial speculations and brainstorming.
This almost certainly won't happen on LessWrong, which is about respectable heroism. No gadflies or comic relief characters are allowed.

The Flag Land Base will be expanding northward!

A secret project has been initiated as part of a larger operation to take over selected strategic areas in and around Clearwater, Florida:

* https://tonyortega.substack.com/p/tampa-bay-times-identifies-developer
* https://tonyortega.substack.com/p/mark-bunker-on-scientologys-sneaky

Original news report from Tampa Bay Times:
* https://www.tampabay.com/news/clearwater/2023/04/02/church-of-scientology-david-miscavige-rodney-riley-trish-duggan-downtown

Officially, it's going to be a residential complex. But it could easily be changed into a secure compound for OT-level Scientology services. These were previously delivered at the "Sandcastle", and also the Flag Building and adjacent Fort Harrison Hotel.

Clearly, David Miscavige is worried about tourists walking around outside the high-level service orgs. I don't think he's afraid they will shout "Xenu", as these buildings are already soundproofed.
But for Scientology to work, there has to be an "elite" and even otherworldly atmosphere. Common riffraff walking around would ruin that.
Until recently, the emptied streets of Clearwater made it seem like the FSO had excellent "area control". As if they could manipulate a whole town in a "Fabian" way like L. Ron Hubbard ordered.

The large number of properties that members were made to purchase (and then leave empty) also helped. Especially since many of these empty properties will receive tax exemption, causing higher taxes for non-Church locals, and a resulting chain reaction of more empty properties.

But now there is a major downtown revitalization effort underway. So the Flag Land Base is looking to install new fences and barriers, and moving into "gated' areas.
On a related note, expect them to pay to have legislation passed that would outlow drones.

How I got banned from LessWrong

These posts below got me kicked out from their "web community". My crime was to claim that their focus on future AI risks completely ignores the issue of current and future complexity sclerosis. They want to solve the ultimate problem of evil by banning certain discussions of actual evil.

The problem is not chaotic overcapability but predatory dysfunction. What I'm saying is that instead of advanced technology failing malevolently because it works too well, the reality is advanced technology failing malevolently because it works increasingly inefficiently. Instead of the Death Star it's like the failure of communism. Observed reality and hype diverge ever more at the lowest level.

As a system gets more complex, more things can go wrong, but you can't complain about it because YOU are supposed to be (a subservient) part of the system. Stating the absurd truth doesn't get you downvoted but banned outright from LessWrong. In retrospect I should have said it differently though, and not held back so much:

---

Insufficient awareness of how everything sucks
(https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nvKiAr7X4kNYb5Jgv/insufficient-awareness-of-how-everything-sucks)


There are so many theories about how future AIs will take over the world, when in the real world software is evil because it DOESN'T WORK.
It takes almost a minute to open a damn txt file on my Windows 10 desktop PC. Things were actually slightly faster in Windows 95. Websites keep loading slower and slower. Bloatware keeps expanding for less functionality. Click and click and click and nothing happens.

Software isn't evil because it evolves beyond the user's goals toward alien goals, but because the computer programmers goals are opposed to the user's goals.
Microsoft hired every devil in hell to work overtime to make it keep crashing and freezing while unstoppably downloading more malware.
I cannot describe in words how hypersatanically evil the world's programmers are, malevolent, diabolical, demonic (that last one not literally). It's been going on for decades, the constant problem of my daily life.
My Pixma scanner is held hostage by the shitbastards at Canon corporation because an attached ink cartridge apparently expired. My h2owireless cellphone sim card stopped working with $7.50 on account and they won't respond in any way. There is NEVER NEVER NEVER any useful info on their websites.

I understand people on this site are deeply worried that future software, instead of being able to do almost nothing for the user, will suddenly be able to do everything for itself.
But everything goes wrong so badly that even things going wrong will go wrong.
People probably WILL use AIs eventually to invent designer neurotoxins or interacting retroviruses or nano shrapnel or something.


Comments:
[-]Rafael Harth
Seems misleading to me because
ImE, the premise is untrue. My Windows crashes much more rarely than it used to, my PC boots much faster, most websites I use work more smoothly than they used to, etc.
I suspect observations about regular software aren't all that relevant for Machine Learning.

[-]Dagon
I don't think that your experience with consumer software is at all similar to Engineer/scientist/modeler experience with large language and predictive models. To be clear, those suck too, and require an insane amount of effort and thought to get anything useful done. But they suck in ways that can be fixed over time, and in ways that (seem to) correlate with the underlying complexity of the world.
Complaining about corporate decisions that happen to be implemented in software doesn't quite connect. At least by that pathway. Worrying that consumer software usually seems adversarial to the consumer, and that there may be a similar problem where AI is adversarial to everyone but the "owner" of the AI is probably justified.
But that's not "software sucks", it's "software creators are a mix of evil and stupid".

[-]Flaglandbase
Yes, but it does show a tendency of huge complex networks (operating system userbases, the internet, human civilization) to rapidly converge to a fixed level of crappiness that absolutely won't improve, even as more resources become available.
Of course there could be a sudden transition to a new state with artificial networks larger than the above.

---

So I was banned from commenting on LessWrong . . .
(My final "diary" post that led to my total ban after already being banned from the comments sections for the previous post.)
(https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aTpXENE6Ae7Xr8cDs/flaglandbase-s-shortform)


My whole life I've been ranting about how incomprehensibly evil the world is. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks things shouldn't be difficult in the way they are.
Evil is things that don't work, but can't be avoided. A type of invincible stupidity.

For example, software is almost supernaturally evil. I've been tortured for a quarter century by computer systems that are inscrutable, deliberately dysfunctional, unpredictable; and above all the freezing and crashing.
The unusability of software is a kind of man-made implacability. It can't be persuaded or reasoned with. Omnimalevolence as an emergent property.
Software is just a microcosm of society.

The reaction to my decades of online rants and hate-filled screeds has been very consistent: the Silence or the Bodysnatchers. Meaning no reaction, or an extremely negative one (I'm not allowed to link either).
There seems to be a deep willingness among normal people to accept evil, which may be the source of their power.
When I was banned from LessWrong commenting (after two requests to be reinstated), they said such talk was "weird". Weird does NOT automatically mean wrong!

Studying the evilness of human-designed interfaces might reveal why the world has always sucked.
Seemingly simple things (like easy interfaces) are still absolutely impossible today. Only the illusion exists, and not for me.
Does that mean that seemingly impossible things (like an intelligence explosion) will turn out to be simple reality tomorrow?
Maybe. Heck PROBABLY. But maybe not.

The fact that it's so difficult to make even the simplest systems not suck, may mean that much larger systems won't work either.
In fact, it's certain that many unexpected things will go wrong before then.
The only way to get transhuman AIs to work MAY be by connecting many existing smaller systems, perhaps even including groups of humans.


Comments:
[-]Flaglandbase
I used to believe the world is so unimaginably horrible that we should do everything possible to accelerate AI progress, regardless of the risk, even if a runaway AI inadvertently turns the earth into a glowing orb dedicated to dividing by zero. I still believe that, but I also used to believe that in the past.

[-]Raemon 1d Moderator Comment 7upv 1 agr
Hey Flagland, I feel a bit bad about how this played out, but after thinking more and reading this, the mod team has decided to full restrict your commenting permissions. I don't really expect you posting about your interests here on shortform to be productive for you or for LW.
We're also experimenting more with moderating in public so it's clearer to everyone where are our boundaries are. (I think expect this to feel a bit more intense as a person-getting-moderated, but to probably be better overall for transparency)
  ... "My whole life I've been ranting about how incomprehensibly evil the world is. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks things shouldn't be difficult in the way they are. [...] The reaction to my decades of online rants and hate-filled screeds has been very consistent: the Silence or the Bodysnatchers. Meaning no reaction, or an extremely negative one (I'm not allowed to link either)... There seems to be a deep willingness among normal people to accept evil, which may be the source of their power..."
  ... To be clear, I think your topics have been totally fine things to think about and discuss on LessWrong. The problem is that, well, ranting and hate-filled screeds just aren't very productive most of the time. If it seemed like you were here to think clearly and figure out solutions, that'd be a pretty different situation.

Clear your calendars! A big event is coming to the Flag Land Base

The most important day of the year has traditionally been L. Ron Hubbard's birthday, celebrated each March 13th with a mass regging event.
After years of Covid lockdowns, this event will once again take place in a secure space somewhere at Flag sometime this month (TBD).
(https://www.mikerindersblog.org/march-13th-save-the-dates-sic/)
The video will also be shown at all other orgs.
Sea Org captain David Miscavige is expected to address and exhort the faithful in person, probably in the Fort Harrison auditorium.
(https://www.scientology-fso.org/inside-our-church/the-landmark-fort-harrison-fully-restored.html#slide12)
There could of course be overflow capacity in the ballroom, and in the adjacent Flag Building's chapel.
In any case, security WILL be airtight, so get your RSVPs in now if you can.

Important news from Flag Base: their senior officer died four months ago

Captain (Flag Service Organization) (Mark) Harvey Jacques has passed away on October 9, 2022 at the age of 69:
https://tonyortega.substack.com/p/report-scientology-loses-captain
Of course, any power or control Harvey Jacques might have had over the Flag Land Base was nothing compared to the real man in charge there (and everywhere else in the Scientology world): Sea Org captain David Miscavige. He is the Sea Org's only REAL captain, even Jacques was only a brevet captain.
We're only learning about this now due to the extreme level of secrecy at Flag. This very much includes Jacques's cause of death, and every other detail.
Notice that no one on staff even signed his funeral book. They had no time or OSA clearance to do so:
https://www.brewerfuneral.com/obituaries/Mark-Harvey-Jacques?obId=26094360
This all resembles gypsy culture. When someone dies, they are never spoken of again. All efforts must be focused on staying alive in the future.
At the Flag Land Base, every effort must be focused on making more money in the future.

Personal imitation software

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EKnDXLxqLAtkkix4w/personal-imitation-software
20220307 0257

Since 2011, I've been trying to get funding for a new tech startup. This turns out to be not as easy as you probably think. It's a serious effort on my part - if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them!
It would be a unique high-tech service that some might say even has 'spiritual' overtones.
And yet this kind of "spiritual" technology would definitely NOT be offered or even acknowledged at the Flag Land Base.

The question is very simple: could you train a powerful computer program to act like an accurate copy of yourself?
Some LW members may have already tried this, but it would require super powerful software. Even if it's only text based, GPT-3 wouldn't be enough. Maybe GPT-13.

If such a program could generate a perfect copy of someone's written responses to any query, a Super Turing Test, the original person would arguably no longer need to exist. That would be the whole point: such a program would be like a "mind backup", a solution to the problem of death.
This would take something like "Deeper Learning" software, requiring huge amounts of data. For starters, it could record its subject's digital activities. Then it might try to predict sleeping and working habits. To get more data it should take the form of an operating system, or virtual assistant, or digital mind extension.

In my case, it could analyze all my old drawings, sorted by date and themes, with description and genre tags added. It could look up style data from the comic books my art is inspired by. Then it would start making making similar art of its own. It could do the same thing even easier with my fan fictions and other written texts. Obviously there would be no demand for any of this, but it would be possible.

Even more advanced, a human subject might start wearing a "sensor hat" or other clothing to allow the software to perceive everything they do. Then it would start to predict what they WILL do and experience.
An important function would be knowing what data to ignore. It should not try to predict everything in the subject's environment, like whatever appears on screens or the actions of other people. It could predict common themes like colors and shapes in programs and web layouts etc. These same patterns already exist in your brain.

Such imitator software might only render a low bandwidth or text-based description of the simulated person's behavior. That wouldn't matter at all, as long as it's all-encompassing.
One application of such research would be software designed to understand what people are doing at any time. One problem of such research would be temporary glitches, like if your coffee mug suddenly dissolves into a slinkie you'd know you were actually the software simulation. That sort of thing is obviously many decades away.

The real question is: what is the most predictive mind imitator software that could be created today?
And this would take a research project that could comfortably fill up the Flag Land Base . . .


COMMENT:
The program could identify where it has the lowest certainty of what the person would say or do, and directly ask the person to fill in those gaps. I wonder what the psychological impact of working with a program in this way would be. It seems like the program would likely discover inconsistencies and uncertainties in the actual person and force them to confront those, which could potentially be beneficial or detrimental depending on the circumstances.
If I noticed my coffee mug turning into a slinky, my first assumption would not be that I was in a simulation, but that I was lucid dreaming. I would react by attempting to reproduce whatever led to the glitch, and exploit it to recreationally violate the usual laws of physics, because that's a novel and fun thing to do when one finds it temporarily possible. This category of reaction, which I suspect I'm not alone in having, would certainly make life more interesting for whoever was running the simulation.

Is David Miscavige at the Flag Land Base?

Captain Miscavige is currently believed to be staying at one of his residences at the secure Hacienda Gardens "apartment complex" in Clearwater Fl.
He has a large and very private luxury apartment there, one of many luxury residences kept for him countrywide. He also has an apartment in the Flag Building itself.
However, only a few dozen yards away, hundreds of Sea Orgers are tightly packed together in small rooms filled with bunk beds. They spend a rather large percentage of their waking time there in line at the bathroom.
* https://whyweprotest.net/threads/sea-org-berthing-buildings-photos-clearwater-fl.56788/
The entire compound is tightly guarded and controlled by Sea Org security. It is quite inaccessible to process servers or reporters.
* https://www.mikerindersblog.org/where-is-david-miscavige/
Just a few days ago, captain Miscavige left that facility to drive or be driven to the Fort Harrison hotel, where he gave a secret speech to Scientologists announcing the goals for 2023.

Singularity Soon (2022 published - online novel)

My new science fiction novel about the Singularity happening SOON is finally ready.
There is a lot of hysteria involved in such a fantastic event. Everything we know will be replaced.
THE INDEX:
https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/263500574-singularity-soon
CHAPTER ONE:
https://www.wattpad.com/1045211713-singularity-soon-1-meta-dream

The Flag Land Base has been served

FSO, or the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization that runs their Advanced facilities in Clearwater, Florida, has been served in a slavery/abuse lawsuit involving Sea Org members. The Sea Org itself has not been named as a party in the lawsuit, as it has no legal existence:
* https://tonyortega.org/2022/05/17/attorney-to-ca-supremes-heres-how-you-can-make-history-in-danny-mastersons-rape-case/

The Flag Land Base is beginning to emerge from the Covid lockdown

Sea Org captain David Miscavige gave a secret speech in Clearwater explaining the new rules. They are now at stage 5 of a 7-stage re-opening program. The Flag Land Base is the first Scientology facility where members of the public WON'T have to wear masks anymore, after a 3-day quarantine. Sea Org staff members will still have to stay masked, and everything will still be sprayed down with the Decon7 sterilizing chemical. Strict precautions will also remain in place at all lower Orgs.

* https://tonyortega.org/2022/05/08/youtuber-takes-a-deep-dive-into-teami-blends-and-its-connections-to-scientology

The Flag Land Base is being sued!

Actually, the suit names the Flag Service Org, which owns and controls the Flag Land Base, and other entities that operate as part of the Base and elsewhere as well; namely the International Association of Scientologists money management organization, the Church of Spiritual Technology, the Flag Ship Service Org, and captain David Miscavige himself, who has offices and sumptuous living quarters there:

https://www.mikerindersblog.org/new-human-trafficking-lawsuit/

Famous actor Tom Cruise is named in a case of forcible confinement of one of the plaintiffs:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/inside-freewinds-the-church-of-scientology-s-ship-of-fear-20220429-p5ah74.html

Prediction: sometime in the early 2030s the suit will be quietly settled for never-to-be disclosed terms. Before then there will be countless hours of legal procedures.

The Posthuman Singularity alignment problem

My ongoing novel about the Technological Singularity describes one way the Singularity could happen MUCH sooner than anyone expects (like next week). And not necessarily in a good way.
In technical terms, this is known as an "alignment failure". However, the novel also implies a possible solution to this error mode:

In the story, the Singularity happens not because a super advanced AI makes itself ever smarter (which isn't practical in the near future), but in a more informal manner. The process is triggered by an expanding group of researchers and information networks becoming ever more organized. This organization acts almost like an organism.
By investigating various ways to create an AI to make the Singularity happen, they inadvertently identify all the most dangerous lines of research. This information is then automatically released in the spirit of openness to those networks best able to pursue it.
And that's when the trouble happens all at once, too fast to respond in any meaningful way.

Which brings us to the big reverse implication:
The only way to control the Technological Singularity would be to have it brought about by a large network composed of the greatest possible number of members. All or at least most of their skills would be needed.
This would also have the advantage that it could be brought about slightly sooner, rather than having to wait until we could build or evolve a superhuman AI.

* SINGULARITY SOON *

Flag Land Base items

How the OT Levels (currently delivered by the Flag Service Org and elsewhere) came into existence is a fascinating story:
The "OT Drug Rundown" became NEW OT IV, "Audited NOTs" became NEW OT V, "Solo NOTs" became NEW OT VI, "SOLO NOTs Auditing" became NEW OT VII.
The original OT Levels, called "ORIGINAL OT", were to be done after today's familiar New OT levels were completed. Foreign students were still doing the original OT Levels IV-VII at the Flag Land Base in 1984.
This gives us some clues about what we can expect (again) once OT IX and OT X are released by David Miscavige in the future.
Source: https://pierreethier.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/fad-and-fallacies-in-the-name-of-the-ot-levels-in-scientolog/

Clearwater disambiguation:
"The Oaks" of Clearwater is a 15-story privately owned retirement complex. The nearby 13-story "Oak Cove", one block from the Fort Harrison, is a Scientology hotel at the Flag Land Base.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fgZVLd5WNY

Some Flag facilities in downtown Clearwater include:
Way To Happiness, Volunteer Ministers, Drug Free World, Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (with Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum), Literacy Campaigns, Scientology Information Center, ... also West Coast Building, Lee Arnold Building, Sandcastle Hotel, Osceola hotel, and the adjoining Coachman Park, ... and other things we don't really know about. A lot more in fact.

Posthuman dreams

The ultimate goal of Mind Backup and mind uploading research is simple to state: It is to find a way to give us unlimited time to do everything we would ever want.
Whenever a challenge or a problem arises, a "sideways dimension" would open up to generate enough time to solve the problem before continuing. This sideways dimension would be virtual, merely a way to pause the realistic VR simulation our minds will inhabit in the digital future.

Future digital minds will only be able to experience a limited number of mental states (all of them good of course). The human terminal goal, our purpose of existence, would be to achieve some ultimate stable state, like an ideal VR dream. Basically an endless moment simulation.

Artificial Intelligence would require the development of something like "retcon technology". You could call awareness itself a false memory.
That means a mind could be created with memories of already having experienced everything of any meaning whatsoever. Eternity would be the ultimate false memory. The sum of everything would contain no information unless it's biased to reflect a certain set of values. Calculating this result might literally take forever.

* SINGULARITY SOON

Life at the Flag Land Base today

Very little information leaks out about conditions within Scientology's Sea Org-manned "Flag Service Org" and other facilities in downtown Clearwater, Florida. Visitors are strictly forbidden, and outsiders are discouraged from even walking past. Large real estate purchases by IAS members have left parts of the town semi-deserted.
Apparently the Sea Orgers working there are being vaccinated on the down-low. It's the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.

Some recent short articles:

* Drone's eye view.

* High-level training.

Flag's future dreams

Imagine if everyone in the world became a Scientologist, and dedicated their lives to going up the Bridge.
How many new Flag Land Bases would the Church of Scientology need to build, in order to provide the world with the special services that can only be done there?
This includes providing oversight for Operating Thetan level OT-7, the Cause Resurgence Rundown, the Superpower Rundown, and various high level auditing, "case cracking", and training packages invented by L. Ron Hubbard.
Currently, there are about 20,000 Scientologists worldwide, but the Flag Land Base is clearly designed to service a larger population than that. It might take 200,000 ardent Scientologists to keep the Flag facilities fully occupied in the way Hubbard would have wanted.
In that case, we would need another FORTY THOUSAND Flag Land Bases to bring everyone in the world up to full OT-8. Even then it would take several lifetimes to accomplish.

* An article about what little we know about conditions at the Flag Land Base as they really are in 2022.

* The church's own heavily massaged and manipulated news page about Flag (or just fso.org/news). As you can see, they don't update their news page much. Like less than once a year.

* A more historical article about the Flag Land Base. And a very interesting classic commercial for some of the special services that can only be sold there.

SINGULARITY SOON

Is physics simple or complex?

Complexity is absurdly simple to generate.
Imagine a checkerboard 10 x 10 rows wide. If you added up all the possible ways that game-pieces of just one color could be placed on that checkerboard, and created one checkerboard for each possibility, the field of boards would stretch wider than the solar system.

Our universe is ABSURDLY complex.
The most powerful supercomputers can't really simulate all the variables of a single quark interaction. Or even the quantum fluctuations in a cubic nanometer of empty space.

The question is whether the laws of the universe are also absurdly complex. No one can say.
For example, the ratio of the strength of the electromagnetic force to the strength of the gravitational force is a rather biggish number.
It's not an exact ratio; there are many digits beyond the decimal point. The question is whether this number of digits is absurdly large or even infinite. Answering that question would lead to the next big breakthrough.

The laws of physics seem to start out simple enough.
According to Scientology scriptures, these laws were "invented" almost casually by thetans many ages ago, as some type of game.
According to standard metaphysics, these laws emerge as elegant patterns within inconceivably vast mathematical structures.

Scientists currently have no clue whether the strengths of the various forces of nature are even related to each other. If they are completely unrelated, their ratios may well require infinite digits to describe.
If the laws of physics governing every interaction in the universe require infinite information, then the future is even more unpredictable than we thought.
Reality will only get more complex without end, and any order that we perceive in nature is purely illusionary.

And that would rule out L. Ron Hubbard's notion that the universe is a simple virtual construction.

wattpad.com/myworks/263500574-singularity-soon

Quantity is Quality

In 1981 when I found out how cheaply microchips could be mass produced, it seemed EVERYTHING should be made from microchips. Walls, floors, furniture, sidewalks, roads . . . all passive objects should be THINKING or at least performing useful calculations.
Once enough stuff is thinking, it will inevitably start solving problems (its own or ours).
This is known as an intelligence explosion. With enough computational capacity, any solution can be found automatically. The best solution to stupidity is brute force, both physical and computational.

This process may yet save us all. Perhaps nothing else could save us, at least not in a real world filled with empowered stupidity.
L. Ron Hubbard certainly didn't rely on his followers' judgment and intelligence. He ordered his endless stream of new recruits to follow simple algorithms, focusing on one (or a few) essential goals. There were always more young Boomers in the pipeline to churn through. The reward function of his process was arguably the most powerful one of all: money.

Microchips need a lot of power, so only a tiny portion of the Earth's mass has been converted so far. But if we keep making more and upgrading them when possible, we won't have to struggle to solve inscrutable problems directly - as long as we pick the right reward function (see: Singularity Soon).

This should arguably be humanity's main goal. It may be necessary to link all the world's microchips into a single "World Mind" that will tackle many different problems in turn.

Bad smurfs: deliberate dysfunctionalities of the Firefox browser

OK, first question: can I use the word "shit" on this blog? Google has a habit of shutting down websites and destroying their data for the most trivial of reasons, or no reason at all. But this post is not about the Google monopoly. That's a different story.
Some of the most evil people in the world are the people at Mozilla. In so many ways they make it so their browser software won't work even though it COULD work.
I have long called the folks who practice the deliberate degrading of software the "Cripplers". In Firefox, satanic shitcode is constantly running in the background, using up your PC cyles for mostly evil purposes.
Today I'll mention how random webpages won't load at all. Their corporate masters say they shouldn't load for reasons we are not supposed to know. Probably because the content isn't being commercialized properly (also censorship).
The first part of the crippling is how Firefox disabled the little X in the LEFT part of the browser window that's supposed to stop the page loading process that will eventually cripple the page loading. But it can't be stopped. The satancode MUST load.
The world is evil to the maximum extent it can get away with. The people at Firefox give us a small demonstration of absolute evil (I won't even start about the browser's tracking functions that allow websites to identify unique users even if they have "cookies" disabled).

OpenShot: the world's worst video editing software

OpenShot is satanically bad software. It appears to be designed to be maximally frustrating, embodying every interface torture I have complained about online in this century and the last. The fact that software as (deliberately?) bad as OpenShot, with such inscrutably secretive control settings and options can be released shows that we really do live in a bad world. So that's something me and the Scientologists agree about. The only thing worse than closed source crapware is open source crapware.

An idea for the best possible Mind Backup shortcut

Perhaps memory data extraction tests should first try to record all of a subject's secrets.
Suppose you wanted to reconstruct the mind of someone you knew. To feel authentic to itself, that reconstruction would need to know all the things they would never reveal or talk about to others.
Maybe these secrets aren't needed to act authentic enough to seem real to others (at least for a while), but secret hang-ups determine personal interests and motivation.
Otherwise, a Mind Backup is really a simulacrum of someone's memories of a dead person, not of the person's own memories. These memories definitely include all their traumas. They may be the reason people's reactions can never be fully predicted.

In an interesting aside, Scientology is also very interested in the deep dark secrets of its parishioners. It keeps these secrets for them to form an ever tightening bond.

Why Star Trek has become obscene

I used to be a big Trek fan, or at least of some of the franchise elements.
Mostly the feeling of fantastically advanced technology really existing. Specifically, the incredibly cool starships and high-level interactions with aliens. I never cared about the characters' personal issues, more the settings they inhabited and all the implied stuff in the background.
Unfortunately, Star Trek has become almost totally irrelevant and obsolete.
The reason is not the quality of the basic storylines or the acting or the special effects. The problem is the Big Picture - or rather the total lack of it. There has not been the slightest progress since the 1990s.

The series concept as written by Gene Roddenberry almost sixty years ago was original. The new series forbids any analysis or deeper exploration of the setting or background.
They should have looked into what is really going on; instead, they just exploit the franchise to extract maximum value (kind of like how Miscavige exploits Scientology without making up new stuff).
That's too bad. There are so many basic questions and apparent goofs that could be flipped into deeper storylines.

I already gave a clever reason why the Trek aliens look like humans: warp drive only allows faster than light travel to distant areas that are ontologically similar.
This also means the aliens don't really live in our galaxy at all! Each alien species lives around a different star, in a different version of the milky way where they are the only intelligent life that evolved. Because of the warp effect, they can act like they all live in the same galaxy.

And why was there no Singularity in Star Trek?
But there was! Only instead of moving into a higher dimension, it expanded INWARDS.
All the subatomic particles in each solar system were converted into a type of computronium years ago, without changing their relative interconnections. These particles are still controlled by their original creators.
Only the top level remains humanoid. This provides the seemingly supernatural intelligence needed for transporters to work, the universal translator, and more important, behind the scenes mission planning and management.
Otherwise it would be statistically impossible to survive as many perilous missions as the various casts always manage to do.

After half a century, I would have expected more intelligent storylines like that. We NEED to find ways to increase intelligence, or at least to simulate it like the Flynn Effect; but things just aren't improving.
Star Trek and other scifi is about simple feelings, not deep thought.

If everyone was like me society would have VERY different preferences and priorities

In that case, euthanasia would be fully legal (I'm not talking about R2-45 here).
However, society would also pay for everyone who died to have their heads frozen in liquid nitrogen. Everyone would want to have their brains preserved this way.
What would happen next depends on how fast technology evolves.
After a few decades, they might start launching frozen heads on Falcon rockets to deep storage facilities several kilometers under the frozen surface of the ice planetoid Sedna. On a typical transfer orbit, it would take close to a century to get there.
There the frozen heads could easily be stored for many more centuries. No need to worry about them thawing out. By storing them deep underground, the frozen neurons would also be protected from cosmic rays.
After a few centuries of technological advancement, the frozen brains would be scanned by super-advanced technology to reconstruct their personalities and memories. The dead would then be brought back as human-level software. The ultimate happy ending, it seems.

If we're lucky, something like the Singularity will happen long before then, and human mind backup and mind uploading will become possible without having to die first. That depends on whether the current trends favoring human stupidity can be reversed. I'm still waiting for the first sign of hope.

This is also related to the novel "Heads" by Greg Bear. Set in the future, the frozen head of L. Ron Hubbard is found to be stored in a cryonics facility on the moon. Future Scientologists then commit various felonies to cover up this fact. After all, Hubbard was supposed to believe the human spirit or thetan was immortal. If he had his brain frozen, it would prove he didn't really believe his own religion.
Needless to say Bear didn't dare use Scientology and Hubbard's real names in this story, but replaced them with stand-ins.

Incidentally, the Flag Land Base could be converted into an "Ideal" cryonics facility, with the Flag Building as its dramatic centerpiece.
No idea what will actually happen to the Clearwater complex in the decades to come, but that would be a much better outcome than the whole place just being liquidated without a plan.

The story of my life

It usually goes a little something like this:
There is a problem. I have managed to narrow the problem down to two choices.
One of the choices is very bad. The other is worse.
The problem is I never know which is which.

The problem of inflation:
At the moment, the government is "stealing" my life savings (by conjuring up fiat specie) faster than I can earn new money.
This creates an incentive for me to spend my money before it loses even more value. The constant loss in value is enough for me to live on.
I would have to be crazy to work more hours at my job. I would effectively be paying them to work there.
Of course none of this applies if you happen to be "employed" at the Flag Land Base.

Does mankind have a future in space?
https://alfinnextlevel.wordpress.com/2021/05/27/when-a-trillion-people-live-work-and-play-in-outer-space/
No one mentions that in less than a century there probably won't be humans - one way or the other.
The future will be posthuman, or the oblivion of total extinction. If there are "people" at all, they will be realistic digital simulations. Hopefully, they will exist in some type of paradise setting. If that happens there isn't even any need for further progress.

How to start a Mind Backup business?

Would a corporation that set out to solve the problem of death be able to get startup funding?
I would hope so. After all, few people want to die. The number of businesses trying to solve death is far lower still. It should be at least as successful as the services that are currently being sold at the Flag Land Base.
The first step should be the simplest: a franchise opportunity to scan and organize everyone's old documents and data.
From personal experience, I know that can take years to accomplish. The process could be automated to a large degree. Just have them pick up all your old papers and disks to convert.

The ultimate goal would be to invent better mind scanning tests. The tests would use something better than deep learning to interact with someone and learn all about their personality.
This is where it gets interesting. It's what the Back Up Your Mind blog is all about.
A prospective Mind Backup business would need some original testing ideas to impress investors. But how could a client convey what it feels like to be themselves in such a way that they could be copied?
The best solution could be to have the subject slowly create a "Sim-like" software-self that would also help them in their daily lives.

Eventually, mind scanning tests may combine with cryonics and destructive brain scans to achieve actual mind uploading.
The most meaningful goal would be to become securely "immortal" within your own life. An endless continuation of an ideal version of your current or past life. This could include false memories of an infinite past, made of recurring time-loops.

Clearwater and the future (links)

* A science fiction story about a low resolution human mind scan method.
No technical details on how it works.

* A podcast with Mat Pesch, who knows a lot about how the Flag Land Base is financed. He used to work there.

* And some analysis about Flag Land Base tax returns.

* Idea: Everyone is trying to make money form crypto. Could there be a way to securely store your MEMORIES longterm on the blockchain? No, probably not
You could call awareness an anthropically encrypted anchor lock defining your position in the blockchain of reality. That's a great way to get sent home from your nearest Advanced Org.

* Synthwave (music) | Track 1 | Track 2
It's like I died a hundred times already. All those lost life settings are barely recalled at random moments, entire lost worlds and lifetimes.
Pseudonostalgic memories feel like actual glimmers of a lost future.

Why the news has been getting more and more boring

The reason is simple: ultimately, it all comes down to the easy availability of birth control.

Let's look at the truth, if we dare: Reality is bad. It's really bad. Unbelievably bad even.
The general outline of human history is horrific beyond comprehension.
Everything is so fantastically bad I can't understand why things go on - and yet they do. It appears that most folks congenitally accept any evil that is sufficiently powerful.

In the past, I've also written a lot about the baffling unwillingness of historians to mention overpopulation as the real cause of historic atrocities from Rwanda to human sacrifice.
Denial makes the world go round. L. Ron Hubbard called it "lack of confront" (this is also why the area around the Flag Land Base has so long been known as a "dead zone").

However, I believe that at a subconscious level, people DO know that things suck. They don't like to admit it because it's actually a form of fear. Non-existence is safe, while the potential downside of awareness could be infinite.
But now it's finally possible to "opt out" from the torture of human existence to some extent. Birth control shifts the "cost" (or benefit) of this radical solution to the next generation.
This is the deep cause of the falling birth rate - something which has never happened before in history or prehistory.

Singularity Soon

This is a religious blog

It's about the religion of digital "immortality", to be accomplished by digitally scanning and backing up as much of your mind as possible.
In the future, long after you have died of natural causes or otherwise, this data will be used to create an AI "copy" of your mind, and bring you back to life in a VR environment of your choice. This is your only hope. The alternative is the oblivion of eternal chaos, perhaps momentary flashes of confusion as some form of Boltzmann Brain.

This is slightly distinct from the religion of Scientology.
Hubbard didn't want to make the formidable efforts needed to invent mind backup technology. In fact, such a notion never occurred to him.
He simply promised that immortality had ALREADY been achieved in a way that no one could verify. That way he could divert his followers' attention in more profitable directions (like an extended stay at the Fort Harrison hotel at the Flag Land Base). A very clever solution!

However, the problem of death is unbearable. It's insane that more research isn't being done. Death affects literally everyone, but the public response is to avoid thinking about it.
The promise of future science is not enough. We need the equivalent of a new religion to change things.
That means that something like Scientology actually NEEDS to exist, only scientific instead of anti-scientific. Scientology as it exists is actually Antiscientology.

Progress is unnatural!

The hidden themes of SF novel series like Ringworld (Larry Niven) and the Foundation series (Isaac Asimov) is how invincibly STUPID everything is. Society is controlled by a dumb consensus, the evil power of brutes. This is presented as both natural and inevitable. Most folks don't even notice.
A great truth is that things are deliberately bad because the majority wants them to be so. Sometimes, I can't get over how bad they want things to be.
Times when everything goes wrong through the deliberate evil of interface torture. System designers spending vastly more on making things NOT work in ways that are profitable for them.
Remove 99% of those people, and things would at least get simpler, and plausibly less bad. That's also what Hubbard said about "removing" folks who are low on the "Tone Scale"...
My best guess is the REAL solution would be to find a way to increase human intelligence. Of course intelligence can't really be increased. It would have to be a virtual process, perhaps involving digital assistants in our daily lives.
And THAT is why i dislike superhero movies so much. In fact I've come to almost despise them, despite their awesome special effects. It's the curse of the genre trap.
With all the crap going on in the world, we see these heroes practicing effortless magic to solve problems with dumb strength. Meanwhile, the real world does not get one whit less evil, and the real issues become LESS open to discussion.

One of my books is being resold on Amazon!

* https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Thunder-Jack-Arcalon/dp/B005D3J2B2/
Rather you buy it here though:
* https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/jackarcalon

Solving the Problem of Death: how to begin?

I believe Scientology blogs should occasionally discuss the (im?)possibility of human minds surviving beyond their present lifetimes. After all, that is half of what Scientology is about, and its main promise to its members. Hubbard sought to suppress the fear of death right from the outset, to get his followers to focus on other things and carry out his goals.
Unfortunately, death can't be defeated through spiritual or religious means, because these things aren't real. (Unless you believe they are real, but either way we get no data.)
That's also why mind "technology" groups like Scientology (and communism) are so ruthless. Because the subject is generally made up, it's not "self executing", but has to be brutally enforced to maintain participation.
Which brings us to the "scientific" or "technological" subject of Mind Backup technology - which also doesn't exist, but perhaps it might someday. A precursor to workable cryonics, it's the deeper subject this blog has always been about.
Certainly there should be more research. Or any research, really.
Over the years, we have discussed ways some of our memories and mental patterns could be "extracted" from our brains for future safekeeping. A long running theme is that a partial mind backup is better than no mind backup.
All it would take is sufficiently advanced technology. Here is a list of services you WON'T find at the Flag Land Base:

* Make a long list of all your best memories. These could be life events or settings.

* The average person has lived maybe a dozen lifetimes, where they lived at different places or in different ways. Each of these distinct life settings should be reconstructed separately.

* "Branching tree" or random walk methods to record many diversely linked memories in a hurry. "Synthetic dream" methods would record ongoing elaborations of imaginary settings or even false memories to measure personality patterns.

* Create a "personal encyclopedia" containing everything that can be recorded in one long volume. It could start with a general overview entry.

* An automatic life recorder or categorizer to watch everything you are doing and turn it into a detailed narrative.

* Memories of a single life event described in full could be a "holographic" encompassment or map of a whole personality. The same could be true for a random thought, fully extrapolated to all the other memories it links to.

* Your awareness might be reverse engineered, by recording or describing many different things that you know. All these things could then be combined, or thought about simultaneously, in an artificial mind. Though these things are not part of your mind, if linked together in one system they might describe an outline of your mind.

* The brain doesn't make awareness by itself. Brains are not enough. They need a constant stream of complex inputs. These create deeper layers of self-input, which compile the personality. This process could be software-simulated at lower resolution, but allowed to continue further than happens in nature.

A novel about this subject:
https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/263500574-singularity-soon

New! Very short science fiction stories:

Quantum immortality:
https://www.wattpad.com/1003301540-quantum-immortality
Neutron star flyby:
https://www.wattpad.com/1035526782-neutron-star-flyby
KILLNET:
https://www.wattpad.com/1001369202-killnet
Nanolarity:
https://www.wattpad.com/1003160162-nanolarity
The reason:
https://www.wattpad.com/1003699749-ultra-short-science-fiction-story-the-reason
and the novel:
https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/263500574-singularity-soon

The nature of science

Science is a highly specific human construct.
It deals with those areas of nature where it is possible to make very slow progress, in tiny steps, over vast amounts of time.
A great deal of work for a small result, which will have big implications.
If you happen to be interested in the nature of human awareness or preferences or communication, no such progress is possible.
Those fields will require a huge mental leap before any improvement in understanding could begin.
So many strange insights from missing fundamentals. Most of them would be simple but make no sense at first. If I could have known what I know now in 1986, I would have been the smartest person on Earth then. If only I could get a message from 2056 . . .
I've waited my whole life for such a mental leap. It may never happen. Of course Scientologists say that's exactly what Hubbard did, but you have to exactly follow his endless instructions for many years before you begin to feel it.

Commonalities

In the 1980s, I invented an SF story plot idea about various countries and groups creating their own digital currencies.
These were fiat currencies, in the sense that the issuer could always create more virtual currency units. Each unit was its own self-actualizing computer program.
Some of these made-up currencies would explode in value as they became popular in the world economy.
Real-life crypto currencies are much better than this, since the number of currency units that can be created is limited. But they are also absurdly wasteful, not to mention unfair to late adopters.

BLM activists and their government/media supporters are strongly opposed to the police. They want them defunded or maybe even abolished. People's commissars would maintain the peace and enforce the Will of the People as relayed by the Party vanguard instead.
Well I'm against the police too, but for quite different reasons.
In practical terms, the police are the ones who make it impossible for those who need it to get euthanasia.

Reality is fantastically, incredibly, unbearably horrible

The biggest (and only) problem in reality is the problem of pain, or more specifically torture.
This could be described as the problem of involuntary or forced existence.
The practical solution of suicide is blocked by the powers that be. Scientology also tries to prevent suicide on its facilities, especially at the Flag Land Base, by immediately expelling those deemed at risk of doing it.

The ultimate solution to the problem of suffering may not exist.
I can think of only two general solutions, and the choice between them is what I have called the greatest mystery (that humans could still understand). The two possibilities: to give up pleasure, or to maximize pleasure.
What if the first is correct?
Seems like minds couldn't function without pleasure. They could still be allowed to feel pain in short bursts. Self-motivation through limited pain might work over sufficient time. The rest of their existence would be neutral. Giving up pleasure seems horrific, but the pain of that loss could be blocked.

This could affect Mind Backup research, and even speed it up. For now, Mind Backup can only be based on lists of memories and facts, instead of mental perception methods that we don't understand at all.
A flawed (i.e incomplete) mind backup could be better than a real one, if it leaves all the emotional parts behind. Emotions may be an intrinsic horror.
Any Mind Backup that becomes complex enough to achieve awareness may be more like Mr. Spock than yourself, but fully believe itself to be your Closest Continuer.
Only abstract viewpoints remain, but will be realized in full.

https://backupyourmind.wordpress.com/2021/01/22/what-is-a-mind-backup-supertest/
http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/

NEW SF NOVEL STARTED!

A science fiction novel about the Singularity happening much sooner than expected. Just how strange could things get?
Singularity Soon
So far six chapters are up, with more to come.

the Flag Land Base zone: redevelopment news

Some months ago, Clearwater asked investors for proposals to develop three downtown parcels owned by the city. These were due by April 12.
Five proposals were received from various groups. At least one of these groups is fully controlled by Scientology / David Miscavige.

April 13, 2021 News Article

Unfortunately, the content of the proposals remains secret. Miscavige has already tried to buy some of the land under consideration. His goal is to modify these lots in such a way that non-Scientology tourists will continue to avoid the downtown area. For that reason, it would be very interesting to read the proposals, especially the one from the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc., the group nominlly running the Flag Land Base. Some of the other groups may be shill companies, with deliberately even worse proposals.

What does it mean to say the world is evil?

It means the world is full of deliberately evil people. It's a human group problem. Evil starts not as sadism (that comes later), but as conformity. The problem of evil is denied by the masses, especially its biggest victims.
For me, the problem is best illustrated by the people at Microsoft, Firefox, Canon . . . The face of Satan is the face of a computer programmer. Others might say it's the face of the average ("theetie-weetie?") Redditor or "tech support" goon. Evil is the invincible power of stupidity. Or maybe it's the face of a bureaucrat or other type of mugger.
I've had people tell me Hubbard was one of the most evil people ever. Personally I think that title should go to Bill Gates, not for what he did, but for what he did so malevolently. I've been cursing that shitman for over twenty years. Not for any grand conspiracy theories, but for the personal tortures inflicted by that devil's deliberately defective software.
Evil feeds not on hate but infinite indifference. The solution to evil is not love, but simplicity. And nothing is more "difficult" than simplicity.
The deep truth about Scientology is the truth of the world, and Scientology is an almost ideal model of how the world works.
The masses make the rules, and evil is pure mass consensus.

Trouble at the Flag Land Base

A guy on a "cult tour" made the mistake of shining a laser pointer at some of the hundreds of FSO security cameras that are monitoring all of downtown Clearwater.
He was quickly arrested, and is now trying to raise funds for his legal defense. (https://tonyortega.org/2021/03/23/man-arrested-for-destroying-scientology-cameras-with-laser-while-on-cult-city-tour/)
Reportedly the downtown area was very quiet that day, with few staff members out and about. But they were watching.
If the cult tours continue, Miscavige may even try something; some kind of staged demonstration at a time and place of his choosing. They are great at group operations.
During the LA riots of 1992 (history described here), Sea Org and Day/Foundation crews at the "other Flag Land Base" (the Advanced Org known as Pacific Area Command or PAC) formed a human cordon around their most valuable properties to discourage looting.
If there is a civil breakdown in the USA, Scientology may begin to thrive again in its own way.

Today at the Flag Land Base

A major event is scheduled for today, as a group of Scientology fans will conduct a self-guided walking inspection of Scientology's Mecca, a.k.a. downtown Clearwater, home of the Flag Service Organization (fso.org or this site).
We recently learned that the head of Scientology (and of the Sea Org), Captain David Miscavige himself, has relocated to the Flag Land Base and is making occasional appearances there!
That makes sense. The FLB is now the largest concentration of Scientologists on the planet, ahead of the Pacific Area Command base in LA, the top secret "Int" base near Hemet CA, and Saint Hill base in England.
https://tonyortega.org/2021/03/11/new-scientology-magazine-boasts-that-david-miscavige-is-now-a-florida-fixture/

Life after death (Part 3)

We live in a perfectly consistent universe. Reality appears to be infinitely stable.
It seems our minds are anthropically anchored by reality, which prevents anything weird from ever happening. Not once in all of history has there been a miracle of any sort whatsoever. Only delusions and illusions.
But why should anthropic anchoring continue to work when our consciousness becomes degraded, like in dreams, or for that matter any moment you're not paying perfect attention? Such non-rigorous perceptions are by definition outside science.
In that case, dreams might be a "gateway" to the infinitely vast universe of possible perceptions, of which our rational waking reality is but a tiny subset.
Things could get very strange. When you fall asleep at an unusual place you are more likely to dream about that place. Also, the dream is more likely to be unusual, like that one time I fell asleep at a party, then dreamt the place had turned impossibly into an empty house. In fact I still haven't woken up . . .
When your consciousness degrades as you die, it might come to resemble and "merge" with deeply strange patterns in the universe of possible perceptions. Even if death comes suddenly, this mental universe contains an infinite number of "closest continuers" - patterns of possible minds that get to experience a miraculous escape (quantum immortality) or even a resurrection or an actual afterlife.
Of course, almost all possible continuers are completely absurd and unstable.

Fun with Scientism; or evolution is stranger than you think

Superpowers are relative:
If an ordinary individual was transported from our universe to the Marvel or DC Universe, they might have a superpower upon arrival there.
Without being changed in any way, they would have the superpower of genre transcendence. They would be more likely to be free of the infuriating conformity and stupidity of these fictional cinematic and comic book universes.

There is no good reason for pain:
Pain is random, absurd, and unnecessary. That doesn't prevent there being an infinite amount of it. I call this pessimistic view of reality the Tortureverse.
Some say that pain is a powerful evolutionary tool, that is said to "serve a purpose" by "protecting" an organism from placing itself in dangerous situations.
This view is also false.
In an infinite and endless universe, it would be perfectly possible to achieve the same results without pain. There would only be gradients of more or less pleasure. This would work slower than gradients of pain and pleasure, but that doesn't matter in an infinite universe.
Pain is a purely parasitical process, an existentially useless curse.

Evolution selects against evolution:
Maintaining existing genes must be as important as evolving new genes.
This prevents better systems from evolving as fast as they should. Anthropically speaking, that may be why we are at the very bottom of an infinitely complex omniverse.

Waiting for the first true sign of progress:
That would be a way for almost anyone to make money, except for people who should be locked up anyway. Right now we're heading in the opposite direction.
Imagine software that actually helps you, instead of helping you make things more complicated.

The secret of the world

When you realize how evil the world is, and how totally deliberate this evil is, and above all how all-pervasive this evil is, things become a lot simpler in many ways.

12 very very short science fiction stories

https://www.wattpad.com/1008411191-12-ultra-short-science-fiction-stories

I prefer very short SF, the shorter the better.
It makes it easier to show the infinite strangeness beyond the thin veneer of reality.

New science fiction ultra-short story

The secret of the Dyson Spheres:

https://www.wattpad.com/1004256714-short-science-fiction-story-the-secret-of-the

New hard SF short story: Buddha's Wheel

While this is set on a completely different starship, it includes many ideas I came up with years ago to "explain" all the mysteries of "Rendezvous With Rama" before the non-canonical sequel novels were published.

https://www.wattpad.com/1001260490-buddha%27s-wheel-part-1

New science fiction short story (7000 words)

This blog is interested in complex conspiracies set in the present or in the not too distant future.

https://www.wattpad.com/1000116376-atheist-jihad

The purpose of this blog

This blog is about attempts to bring science fiction to life in actual reality.
One of the best examples I know of is the Flag Land Base.
There are others, like the reality distortion that occurs inside any sufficiently totalitarian society (those you can't visit quite as easily as Clearwater, FL.).

My personal definition of science fiction is a type of story that is presented like something that could really happen - but the story creator does not believe it will really happen. They understand it's fictional exaggeration.
That means the author accepts a degree of unreality in the story, which may be taken from other genres (farce-like, horror, comedy).

That is also why Michael Crichton was not a science fiction writer.
He always presented his well-written but unlikely stories as if they could really happen. That was part of the secret of his success. And of the Flag land Base.

Life after death (Part 2)

L. Ron Hubbard wrote and talked extensively about thousands of previous lifetimes as if they actually happened, and as if we all experienced them.
He didn't explain the basis of his metaphysical philosophy. The closest he came was the concept of a "static".
This leads to a rather strange notion.
Bear with me here: whatever happens after we die, might also happen while we are still alive (assuming that anything can happen after we die).
This mysterious phenomena, the continuation of our thoughts and perceptions under radically changed circumstances, is far less likely to happen while we're still alive - but it shouldn't be impossible.
While alive, our mind patterns are anthropically anchored in a much larger universe or multiverse, of which they form a tiny part.
That means things can't suddenly get extremely weird. Or at least it's vanishingly unlikely for such weirdness to appear.
But once we die, that protection disappears.

Ultra-short SF story: Nanonyme

You stood motionless on the side of the road with your back to the sunrise.
It should be getting brighter in that direction too, but something was different this morning.
It was hard to feel anything when you didn't know what was happening, or if anything was happening at all. Hard to recognize something no one had ever seen before.
The impression was of an immense wall approaching from the west.

The entire sky was filled with a suspension of dark dust. Microscopic particles floating in the air, as if they were crawling through it.
You realized the particles were already around you. The impression was of fast movement. Were they moving past or just appearing somehow?
The flow wasn't random enough. The dust stayed too smooth, intermittent bright and darker areas in the sky as if they lined up in all directions.
The density was low, but there were many of them. Was it getting warmer?
You phoned your mother then, who lived ten miles further west, deep inside the strange fog. The call went through fine, with only a slight delay.

"Everything's fine dear," your mother says. "I was just making breakfast a bit early. Still dark outside but the birds are already singing."
The voice is just right, but that's not exactly how your mother talks.
You start to say something, but then you hear several other voices talking at once. They are versions of your own voice, talking to different people you know, saying that everything is OK and not to worry.
As you keep trying to interrupt, your other voices become more animated and lifelike, adapting and learning from your unheard efforts.

The sparse traffic seems to have stopped in the fading gloom. No headlights to be seen.
There are some lightning sparks in the distance, snaps and crackling coming closer. A single cyclist zooms past, but his legs move in a blatantly artificial way.
The dust is a vast machine, sliding like an avalanche that will soon be everywhere.
You'll have the rest of your life to admire its beautiful simplicity.